June 18, 2007

Many of the sub 20 employee small businesses in the UK cannot afford a dedicated IT resource, and for sure home users cannot !

Given this it has always been difficult for both categories to get IT help when they need it…no longer it seems, there are at least 3 companies offering solutions if you have got yourself into an IT hole:

June 16, 2007

The city of London has turned on an area wide WiFi network providing access to anyone within what is known as the Square Mile. It consists of a network of 127 nodes that have been placed on lamp posts and which provide internet access.

The scheme is being monitored as a testbed for potential municipal WiFi. Unlimited access costs though – £12 a month.

The network’s backers think one of the big attractions
will be the ability to use wi-fi enabled phones to make cheap calls
using Skype or other internet telephony services.

It is said to be the continent’s most advanced wireless network – a claim made by the network’s creator, The Cloud / The City of London Corporation.

Recent research by YouGov, which was sponsored by Microsoft, SME’s (Small to Medium Enterprises) feel disenfranchised from technology trends and developments. SME’s account for around 85,000 companies and employ up to 1,000 people each, and as a sector they contribute more than 1Trillion pounds a year to the UK economy.

Simon Hughes, in charge of Mid Markets at Microsoft, states that the technology sector has not been good at providing cost-effective solutions to suit mid market needs. This is backed up by the statistics in the survey which show that 70% of SME’s feel their needs are overlooked by vendors and suppliers.

Of those companies pooled a staggering 85% said that technology expansion will play a critical role.

This is backed up a seperate similar survey by IBM.

Many of the big players are looking to the SME market as a source of untapped revenue, but whether the SME’s will be sufficiently convinced that they will get the QOS and SLA’s they get from smaller suppliers remains to be seen.

According to Juniper Research wireless VOIP willl go from $2 billion in 2007 to $15 billion in 2012, with the growth being driven by the potential cost savings businesses can experience that can be made on communications in businesses and also due to the fact that VOIP quality has improved.

Juniper also predicts that Cisco will dominate the market at the switch and controller level, and that the handset market was much more open.

June 9, 2007

VoIP services do not use physical connections: they use protocols, with Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) the most widely accepted. At heart, it is quite dumb, merely connecting the two callers on a peer-to-peer basis and making the hardware or software handsets at either end ring, dial and connect. The full range of features open to SIP users is dependent upon the hardware at either end of the call, making this an infinitely expandable protocol. At present, it supports voice and video calling, but there is no reason why an as yet undeveloped medium shouldn’t use SIP to establish connections to other multimedia-savvy hardware at a future date.

SIP works in a similar way to email and the Web, and it goes a long way to solving the problem of interoperability between different VoIP providers. Ineen and sipgate subscribers, both of which run services using the SIP protocol, can call each other for free by appending the appropriate domain to the end of their subscriber numbers. Therefore, 2003195@ineen.com can speak to 5808085@sipgate.co.uk at no cost, regardless of the fact they have signed up with competing providers.

SIP also allows for direct connections to the outside world at little or no extra cost, using the Electronic Numbering (Enum) system. Enum should eventually unify VoIP and regular telephone networks, and as such is overseen by the International Telecommunication Union, part of the UN. It grew out of the original standard for defining international phone numbers that gave us +44 for the UK, +33 for France, and +1 for Canada and the US. This latest update, Recommendation E.164, makes little distinction between real numbers and those used by VoIP services. By the time it is fully rolled out, you will not need to know if the person you are calling has a landline or a VoIP connection, just as you do not need to know whether your contacts are BT or Telewest subscribers.

So, returning to the example above, that 5808085 sipgate number can now be dialled from a regular telephone by dropping the initial 5 and adding the appropriate UK area code, at which point it will be routed from the regular circuit-switched network to packet-switched VoIP, without the landline caller ever knowing their outbound call has jumped ship onto the Net. Unfortunately, for the time being at least, dialling the number on its own, even from within its own local area, will not connect the call because of the way the system is configured.

The issue of numbering and how VoIP services interface with the regular telephone networks has given regulators cause for concern. In its consultation document for numbering arrangements, Ofcom outlined its belief that ‘the use of geographic numbering for [Voice over broadband] services raises a number of concerns, predominantly the impact on the available numbering resource and adequate consumer protection measures’. Its solution is the introduction of a new non-geographic subset of the 05 area code, much like the non-geographic 077 – 079 codes used for mobile phones.

Will Enum survive such intense scrutiny from regulators? Sipgate’s Steve Mancour believes so. ‘It is always dangerous to make predictions, but I think that Enum has the best chance so far. The SIP protocol is much like the hypertext protocol (http) that the Internet normally uses for web pages… designed to be scalable to huge, multinational networks, while cutting costs to a minimum. It will remain the dominant protocol for VoIP for many years.’

But SIP is by no means the only option. H.323 has been longer established and actually formed the basis of NetMeeting 2, launched in 1998 and since usurped by the largely SIP-based MSN Messenger in the years since XP first appeared. This was one of the earliest standards to define how packet-based telecommunications should work and, in particular, how Internet Protocol and ISDN should converse. It gained widespread acceptance, and H.323-compliant equipment is still available, representing SIP’s only realistic high-end, non-proprietary competitor.

However, passing voice traffic over a network is a far from trivial feat. It is now well known that the Internet works by splitting data into separate packets, which are then sent across the network using whichever route is the most efficient. This route can change by the second, so there is no guarantee each packet will immediately follow the one that went before it. Once they reach their destination, they must therefore be put back together in the right order and translated into a form we can use. Doing this with a constant two-way voice stream is a highly complex operation, and can result in slight latency.

VoIP protocols employ a number of techniques to minimise this effect, the most effective of which is to transmit just the audible part of each conversation. For much of any call, at least one of the participants will be silent, and so only the incoming stream will be transmitted. A poorly configured microphone without noise cancellation, however, will continue to transmit background noise even when a participant is not talking, making the data exchange more complex.

SIP in the Wireless World:

In the wireless world, SIP has not been very popular so far due to a number of wireless network limitations. GPRS and other first generation wireless IP packet networks are too slow and the latency of the connection was too high. In addition, speech algorithms used by current SIP implementations use inefficient codecs which require a substantial amount of bandwidth. 3G networks such as UMTS offer higher bandwidths compared to earlier networks and are thus able to carry SIP voice calls over the air interface. A SIP call, however, uses around five times more bandwidth then a traditional circuit switched mobile voice call for which very bandwidth efficient codecs are used in the radio network. This fact together with the openness of SIP for the user to choose the operator of the SIP server himself explains the reluctance of wireless operators to support the application of SIP services in their 3G networks.

The Future of SIP in the Wireless World:

In the near future, SIP clients will mostly be adopted on GSM/UMTS/Wifi smart phones such as the Nokia N80, where they can be used to make phone calls over a Wireless LAN access point connected to DSL or a company network. My current Smartphone, the Nokia E61, already has this functionality built in. In effect, a SIP client in the mobile phone can replace the fixed line phone at home and I am actually waiting for the day when I can use a single phone at home and when underway – I actually can if I want Bt to be my provider.

When leaving the office or home, a SIP client can still be used for voice calls but many operators (carriers) try to restrict SIP for the reasons discussed above. Very near term evolutions of 3G networks to technologies like HSDPA (High Speed Data Packet Access) might change these policies in the mid term.

IDC said 124.3 million homes worldwide had broadband access at the end of 2004. This was up 47 per cent on the year before and opened up a vast market for Internet telephony. The potential for global point-to-point PC calling is growing on a daily basis, giving the nomadic VoIP user more opportunities to hook up their personal number wherever they stop for the night. This is not complimented, by VOIP providers such as Skype, with the ability to route the call through to another number if the VOIP number is offline.

VoIP is unlikely to totally replace conventional setups any time soon. Currently there are just too many problems inherent in using an entirely packet-based medium for voice. Beyond the issue of emergency calls, there is availability to consider. The public phone network does not power VoIP hardware the way it does with conventional handsets, so will be out of action if your power blacks out, which could be when you need it most.

This however misses the point. Most people are using VOIP to supplement their traditional call services, not replace them. Alsoost VoIP services also cannot host a fax machine which is an important consideration and potential opportunity for us to take advantage of at Yac.

Each of these factors counts against VoIP, which will remain a complementary service for most users, with corporates retaining at least a handful of conventional lines as entry points to the legacy network for fax machines and monitored alarms. Home users too will be given the choice of reliable, conventional calling and cost-saving, innovative VoIP. Even the providers accept this, with Skype’s Sarah Myers explaining that: ‘[in the same way] email is free but people still pay for and use the fax, we feel that voice calls using Skype could be a free alternative to other telephony for anyone using the Internet.’

Assessing the VOIP Implementations

Perhaps the best-known service, and certainly one of the easiest to set up, is Skype. With SIP-based services, you may find yourself filling in long configuration forms, unless you are using a pre-configured router. But by using its own proprietary format, Skype is able to provide a fuss-free installation. The settings are built into the software itself, so all you need do is pick a username and hook up your speakers and mic. It is as simple to complete as signing up for MSN Messenger.

Call quality can be variable, but usually rivals a traditional circuit-switched connection and, with a wide range of software plug-ins and hardware peripherals reaching the market, it is a flexible option that will certainly grow over time, especially now that it has the muscle of Ebay behind it.

The best conventional international deal seems to be provided by Pipemedia. Its PipeCall service incurs both an installation fee and a monthly charge of £2.99, but once paid the European, American and Australian call costs are unbeatable. At less than 1p a minute for some European numbers, and with a dedicated incoming number thrown in (which allows mobile/fixed routing), it seems to be a no-brainer for heavy users.

However if mainly calling within the UK. The £2.99 a month plus tax and the installation fee means the payment will be about £60 in your first year. This gives us a good pricing benchmark for a VOIP service that also provides inbound call services.

You could easily undercut this cost with sipgate. For the same price as a subscription to PipeCall, you could make 5,019 minutes of UK calls using sipgate’s tariff-free service. You will have to provide your own headset or handset, but you do get a dedicated number with a UK area code and free voicemail thrown in to boot, but no number routing for free,so inbound call management is poor.

The sipgate1000 tariff is that for £5.90 a month, your annual costs will be £70.80, but will give you 12,000 minutes of outbound calls to UK landline numbers, which is more than enough for anyone running a business from home, and almost half the price of BT’s annual subscription to Broadband Voice Anytime.

June 5, 2007

There’s been a lot of speculation about Salesforce and Google lately. The two companies will soon announce a marketing and distribution alliance that will tightly bind Google Adwords to existing Salesforce tools that track sales from online advertising.

Salesforce and Google will be starting an extended partnership encompassing marketing and distribution of their products across 43 countries. It will begin with the integration of Google Adwords and Salesforce’s lead generation tools into a new application called “Group Edition”. Group edition replaces Salseforces earlier version Team edition.

Group Edition will enable Adwords users to track Adsense referrals to their site and build up a customer profile based on a the data a user enters into a site and their navigation path. Businesses will handle their Adwords campaigns through Google, as usual, but Salesforce takes over from there. When potential customers click through to the businesses site, Google tells Salesforce what search terms brought the user to the page and where they navigate throughout the site.

Seems Google is at it again…..this looks to be a smart buy for Ad syndication….

Google has continued its recent spending splurge with the purchase of FeedBurner, the Chicago-based distributor of news feeds to web browsers . Thought to be in the region of $100m (£50m), the deal offers the web giant a chance to extend its huge online ad network into the realm of RSS and off-site consumption of content.

CHICAGO, May 22 — Cleversafe Inc., developer of Dispersed Storage software, today announced that Jonathan Zakin will lead the company as its new president and chief executive officer. Founder and former CEO, S. Christopher Gladwin will continue with Cleversafe as the company’s chief technology officer (CTO) and chairman of the board.

Zakin, a one-time Cleversafe investor who has served on the company’s Board of Directors since its formation, was previously a partner in Batterson, Cross, Zakin, L.L.C., an early stage venture capital firm, and owns Seaview Holdings L.L.C., an investment entity that actively invests in early-stage companies. He was chief executive officer and chairman of the Board of Directors at wireless broadband company Proxim Corp. Prior to Proxim, Zakin spent nine years with U.S. Robotics Inc., a leader in data communications equipment, as a director, and in various senior management positions.

“We have asked Jon to take a more active role in Cleversafe to help grow our company into a data storage market leader,” said Chris Gladwin, chairman of Cleversafe. “He has an impressive business track record in growing small companies, such as US Robotics, into large market leaders creating billions of dollars in value. The huge opportunity ahead of Cleversafe merits the high level of expertise that Jon has demonstrated throughout his career.”

Current approaches to storage backup and archiving rely on multiple copies, replication and synchronization technologies, which compromise security, add complexity and increase costs. Cleversafe’s Dispersed Storage software divides data into “slices” using mathematical algorithms and disperses them, via secure Internet connections, to multiple storage locations. An individual slice contains too little information to be useful on its own, but any majority of the slices can be used to perfectly recreate all the original data.